There's been a twist in the saga of whether Matthew Whitaker, the acting attorney general, was told by ethics officials to recuse himself from overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Early Thursday, a senior Department of Justice official told The Washington Post Whitaker was told there's no need for him to step aside, but this person came forward later in the day to say that's actually not how it went down. Several other people familiar with the matter told the Post that a senior Justice Department ethics official did come to the conclusion that Whitaker should recuse himself, but his advisers told him he shouldn't, and he is following their advice.
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